Duck Confit Tartlets with Smith & Hook Proprietary Red Wine
Your easy Thanksgiving appetizer course is served!
Slow-cooked, tender duck meat with caramelized red onion, balsamic, and orange zest in a crispy tartlet paired with hand-crafted California red wine. It sounds like something you’d see on a gourmet dinner menu but this showstopping appetizer is not only doable, it’s easy! Best of all, you can prep all the ingredients ahead of time and assemble them in minutes when it’s time to serve.
A few time-saving hacks and simple ingredients create a new holiday classic your friends and family will love.
Smith and Hook 2019 Proprietary Red
For the wine pairing, I chose the fruity, delicious Proprietary Red Wine from Smith & Hook. The flavor of the wine combined with the tartlet is out of this world! I’ll be serving this combo annually from now on.
When it comes to selecting wines to pair with Thanksgiving (or any holiday meal), I’m looking for versatility, value, and flavor. This wine has all three and transitions beautifully from this pairing to many other dishes.
A blend of Petite Sirah, and the five classic Bordeaux varieties (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot), this wine is fruity yet refined. Each of the grapes has a role to play and winemaker Megan Conatser’s sense of balance and structure is showcased in this bottle. The fruit comes from three prestigious appellations of California’s Central Coast: San Antonio Valley, Arroyo Seco, and Santa Lucia Highlands.
The fruit-forward flavors of this wine are an outstanding complement to the rich flavors of the duck. The subtle sweetness of the onion with the balsamic glaze, orange marmalade, and zest enhance the notes of blackberry, cranberry, and plum while the crunch of the pastry begs to be washed down with another sip. The luxurious new French oak used to age the wine adds a layer of spice that ties it all together.
Don’t let duck intimidate you
A classic in French cuisine, duck confit traditionally consists of duck legs cured in salt, herbs, and onion and cooked low and slow in duck fat for tender, fall-off-the-bone meat. If this sounds intimidating to you, I get it. To simplify the process, I enlisted the help of my crock pot to produce a similar, foolproof cooking technique that I could set and forget for the day.
I wasn’t able to get duck legs only this year at my grocery store. So, I decided to try working with a whole duck instead and it turned out great! I started early in the morning the day before I needed to serve my tartlets. I rubbed the entire duck with salt, pepper, freshly chopped herbs, and garlic and let it cure in the fridge for three hours.
Before I placed the duck in the crock pot, I made four golf ball-sized balls of tin foil to place in the corners of the crock pot underneath the duck to keep the bird off the bottom of the pan. This allowed the duck to cook more evenly and the fat it produced to be easily collected and preserved for future use. I cooked the duck on low for seven hours, checked that the internal temperature read consistently above 170°F, then turned it off to cool before moving it to the refrigerator overnight.
In the morning, the meat was cold and falling off the bones. I separated the leg meat for my tartlets from the rest of the duck, chopped it finely, and place it into a container to transport to my brother’s house about three hours away. I froze the rest of the meat for use in another recipe later this month. I spooned the rendered fat into a small jar and stored that as well.
Assemble and serve
The base layer of the tartlet consists of red onion, orange marmalade, balsamic vinegar glaze, and salt and pepper. I whipped this delicious, fragrant mixture up in about 8 minutes, let it cool, packed it into a separate container from the duck meat, and into the cooler it went. So easy! From there all I needed was my frozen pre-made mini phyllo pastry shells, an orange, my channel knife for the zest, and an ice pack and I was ready to hit the road.
When I arrived, I was able to preheat the oven, unpack my small cooler, and get these onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and served in less than 15 minutes total. Best of all, I didn’t feel like I was messing up the flow of everything else my sister-in-law was trying to do in her kitchen for dinner since I had already done everything at my own house.
Duck Confit Tartlets with Caramelized Red Onion, Balsamic, and Orange
Makes 15 tartlets
Ingredients:
1 package of frozen pre-made mini phyllo pastry shells
1 lb. confit duck leg meat – I cooked my duck whole in my slow cooker for about 7 hours but there are other ways to do it!
1 medium red onion, sliced thin
1 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons orange marmalade
1 tablespoon balsamic glaze
salt and pepper to taste
1 orange, zested for garnish
optional: crème fraîche to dollop on top
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350°F
Remove the duck meat from the bones and chop or shred it
Heat the olive oil and butter in a pan over medium and sauté the onions until they start to brown.
Stir in the vinegar and marmalade and cook until it’s well-mixed and thickens. Remove from heat and set aside.
Arrange the phyllo shells on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Spoon the onion mixture into the phyllo shells and top with shredded duck meat. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the phyllo is slightly browned.
Serve warm, finished with orange zest and a dollop of crème fraîche
Did you try this pairing?
I’d love to hear what you think! I’m always looking for new inspiration and I hope you loved this one as much as my family and I did this holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving! Xo, Montana Rae
